I would also say my father as he shared his childood passion for cards with me at a young age. Also would be remissed to no mention about 5-6 board members who have helped and shared there knowledge of my adult collecting focus. Net54 has been good to me:D

Defenitely my Dad, he would give me a pack a week if I was a good boy. He bought a box from a pharmacist at cost and would give me a pack a week, and that started it all. Then starting in the late 1980s he would take me to all of the ESSC? Philly shows. Lots of great dealers and people at those George Washington Motor lodge shows. Taught me a lot about people too so many dealers wanted nothing to do with a kid back then but would talk up my dad as he looked like he had money even though he didn’t, nothing disappointed the dealers more than talking to him for 5 minutes only to find out he didn’t collect cards or even like baseball but just brought me because that’s what I loved.

We took a vacation to the Wisconsin Dells in 1975 and I convinced my dad to stop at Larry Fritsch's place. I couldn't believe all the cards he had in his warehouse. He had a T206 Wagner in his safe and he took it out and let my dad and I hold it. He mentioned he was sending a semi trailer to Michigan and he hoped to fill it with cases of 75 minis. When we got home my dad took me to the candy wholesaler and he bought a wax case of 75 minis. We broke them out and made a number of sets. I still have every card from that case along with the empty case and all of the empty boxes. It's amazing what my dad remembers about those type of things. As an added bonus we stopped and saw a Brewers game and Rick Wise came within one out of a no hitter. The hobby seemed a lot simpler back then. Love the stories guys. Please keep them coming and we can make a huge difference for people in this great hobby. You never know what impact you might have on some one.

My dad got me hooked when I got a 1954 Topps Willie Mays for Xmas. Thanks Dad.

but

Orlando Rodriguez got me to refocus my collection. I stopped going to the card shop every week ( I usually would spend $40-$50). I started to sell off my modern cards and the vintage cards that I could live without. It was hard at first but became easier once I saw the cards i could then afford. I was getting rid of the cards that I could find all day, everyday. I used the cash flow from the sales to fund higher end vintage cards. My collection now is nicer than I thought it ever could be... I now own cards I thought I'd never own. Thanks Orlando.

John Spalding. Got me addicted to prewar Exhibit cards. Some of the first ones I bought from him around 1990:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit.../Alexander.jpg
http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...ize/Muesel.jpg

Wow, I'm honored Ben. Thank you. I can say that JC (Beantown) really took me under his wing and taught me a lot about rare cobb postcards.

I have told this story before, so please forgive any repetition. I immediately had a name that came to mind. Melanie Lain was the most influential person for my collecting for several reasons.

I had collected a couple of packs in '78 and '79 - both in baseball and football. However, '80 was the year that I had a break through. I was 8 years old and in second grade. Melanie was a senior in high school and our teacher's aid. One day, I brought a box of cards for some variation of show and tell. Melanie came up and looked at my cards. She told me that she collected as well and asked me if I wanted to trade.

As an 8 year old, I had two thoughts - 1) No one was coming near my cards and 2.) Eww a girl? She has baseball cards?

I agreed to consider it, however, I had my reservations. Melanie went to the same church and lived close, so the next week, she came by with a shoe box. She told me that she didn't want to take my cards but went through her collection to give me some. It was '70-'75 with the majority in '72 & '73 but there were stars in every year. Aaron from all the years, Mays up until he retired, Clemente, Gibson, Kaline, rookies of Brett and Yount, Killebrew, Frank and Brooks Robinson - she just gave me all. She decided to go through her basketball and football collection and gave me a lot of 71-72's and 72-73's - Chamberlain, West, Baylor, Alcindor, Robertson, Unites, Staubach, Namath - they were all there pack fresh.

This was an awesome day. I immediately went to a friend's house and gave him some of them - I figured that I had 3 Willie Mays' in there, so he could have one of them. Same with Aaron, etc.

From there, it was disaster. A card show was coming to town. I heard that baseball cards were worth money so I wanted to go. Melanie went with me. In the first 5 minutes at the show, I proceeded to sell the box. The guy at the front of the show picked through the best cards and offered me $8. I then took the rest and they guy offered me $5. I needed $14 for an '80 Topps set. I had to borrow $1 from my mom.

I collected through high school, but it was 80's junk wax and a bunch of topps, fleer and donruss sets from those years. In my sophmore year of college in the fall of '91, I decided to sell everything. I posted them in the trader. A guy came and looked at them. I didn't want to hover. He looked at my albums that had some of my stars - some stuff I had gathered over the years like a '68 Seaver. He stole 15-20 cards out of my binder and told me that he wasn't interested. I then looked through them later and realized that he had taken those better cards. I ended up selling the collection for $250 and put it towards a used big screen TV so that I could be the BMOC (in my mind at least) in the college dorm.

Fast forward to 2012. I took my boys to Cooperstown and they had both the Ken Kendrick collection and a baseball card room. While in the baseball card room, I showed the boys all of those '70-'75's that I used to have and it bummed me out like it was 1980 all over again. Later that weekend, after we got back home, I was on ebay looking at those cards and lamenting selling them all for $13. My wife, tired of my whining, says with exasperation - "If you want those cards, just go buy them." By the end of that day, I bought complete sets for '80-'85. Within the next week, I had bought complete sets back to '76. Over the next two weeks, it was '73-'75. I then found someone who was selling '66 and '72. I found someone on Craigslist who had near sets of '71 and '68. The race was on.

5 years later, I have '54-current in Topps, '50, 53 (Color & B&W), '54, and '55 Bowman plus 60-63 Fleer, '52 Red Man and some other test issues. My wife reminds me on occasion that her invitation was to buy the '70-'75 shoe box back - not every card ever made.

Through it all, I think of Melanie Lain. Not only did she give me the cards with no strings attached, she went to the card show and watched me sell them - never stepping in to say - "that was not the idea when I gave them to you. If you are going to sell them, just give them back." She was friendly and positive the entire way.

Given the 1-2 sentence responses to most of these, I have probably emoted way too much, but it does make me go back and think about how I acquired this collecting illness and why I remain borderline obsessive with it even today.

Jeff Prize-ner, guru of postcards!

Bob Richardson
 

My focus quickly migrated from available wax at local grocery store (84 Topps) to older cards as I attended local card shows. The older the better although it was tough to find anything in the Upper Peninsula of MI. My ability to collect older cards improved once I subscribed to SCD which opened the door to impressive dealers and collectors alike.

I ordered Lew Lipsets encyclopedias and quickly narrowed my Detroit interest to Old Judges. By the late 1980s I had contacted Bob Richardson and we wrote each other many times. It was always a special treat to receive a letter as it would typically include xerox copies of cards I had dreamed about. I managed to obtain Detroit Old Judges of Rowe, Thompson, and Twitchell from Bob before graduating HS and temporarily leaving the hobby. I returned to the hobby in 2003 and immediately wrote Bob to see how similar/different his interests and the hobby were. He was still collecting and we traded far more material as it was easier for me to find cards on his wantlist thanks to eBay.

Bob was single most influential collector, always willing to take the time to answer questions and help a fellow collector out regardless of age, knowledge, etc.

Me too! In the same time period. Also got my T206 WaJo from him - funny. Decades later, when I "renewed" my collection, I realized I had a T206 Duffy Red Hindu. Graded highest any TPG, and sold at auction (Hi Scott and Leon). After he sold off his books/periodicals/etc (to the University of Notre Dame, South Bend, which, at that time, and maybe still, gave them the largest sports text collection in the world), Goodiie moved just a quick bike-ride from where I lived. Was over there a lot. I got stories.